Rusty was going to decline, but then she said, “I wasn’t the only one to pray for you. I might have been the only one to write, but the whole church prayed for you.”
Rusty was still trying to find a way to say he wasn’t coming.
“I would consider it a personal favor if you came,” Mrs. Hargrove said, a soft light in her eyes.
Rusty hadn’t been looked at with love many times in his life, but he recognized it all the same. Even his own mother had never written him a letter.
His voice was thick. “I’ll be there.”
“Good.” Mrs. Hargrove smiled at him.
Rusty gathered up Tessie and escaped to the pickup before any of the boys could see King Herod with damp eyes. He figured Renee wouldn’t be too pleased about him going to church, since he’d have to get a ride with her. He’d be sure to sit in a separate pew, as touchy as she was about anyone thinking they might know each other.
Not that he wanted any gossip to start, either, he told himself. Renee was a delicate butterfly of a woman—flitting here and there. Always beautiful, but with a wonderful array of emotions he’d never figure out.
She was the kind of woman lost to him, he told himself. His mother had been that way from the first, he remembered. Sparkling with emotion until life with his father had pulled the joy right out of her. Rusty was cut out of the same taciturn cloth as all the Calhoun men. He could not bear for the coldness inside of him to take away the joy inside of Renee. Some things in life were just worse than being alone.
Chapter Four
Renee stomped across the snow to the driver’s door of the pickup and then frowned. A few snowflakes were still falling and the air was icy cold. It was going to be a white Christmas, but that didn’t bring her much cheer at the moment.
“She needs to ride in the booster seat,” she informed the prince flatly as she climbed inside. “And you don’t have to carry her. She’s five years old now and can walk on her own two feet. Besides, you have an arm in a sling.”
She didn’t know why he insisted on ignoring his injuries. By tomorrow he’d be in pain and, like as not, expect someone else to run around and fetch for him. Well, it wasn’t going to be her.
“I know you’re upset,” Rusty said as he turned slightly so he could unlatch his door. “But it’s no trouble. I can put her back where she needs to be easy enough.”
Renee shook her head. But some of the anger had drained out of her. Tessie was asleep and Rusty first had to remove the girl’s cardboard wings and set them on the floor. He did that very carefully, then started to strap Tessie into her seat. Since he could use only his left arm, Renee had no choice but to step out of the cab and open the back door.
“Here, let me,” she said as she climbed up into the backseat to get a proper angle on the seat belts. She pushed the seat closer to the opposite door and grabbed a pillow so that Tessie could rest her head and continue sleeping if she wanted. Last night had been late for them all and Tessie had woken up early this morning, still excited about her prince. Apparently Rusty had kept both her and her daughter awake last night. But it wasn’t his fault he’d gotten to her.
Renee locked all the seat belts into place and scooted out of the back of the cab. Rusty had already settled himself in the passenger seat again. By the time Renee was back at the steering wheel, she was freezing and thoroughly discouraged.
She had no reason to care about this man. Just because he’d landed on her doorstep didn’t mean she needed to worry about what would happen to him.
She turned on the ignition and hit the defrost button. That would give the cab some heat while it cleared the fog on the window. Fortunately, they had been away from the pickup only long enough for a layer of frost to form.
“I’m sorry things didn’t go well in there,” Rusty finally said after they had sat together in silence for what seemed like a very long time to Renee.
She turned to look at him. “I know you didn’t intend to end up as King Herod.”
The heater had cleared a small semicircle low on the windshield. They still had a few minutes before it would grow enough for them to leave.
Rusty shrugged. “I didn’t intend to rescue Tessie, either. I had every intention of proving I was no prince, but...” His voice trailed off. “Well, I couldn’t just leave her there crying all by herself.”
“I know,” Renee said softly. “It’s probably my fault anyway.”
He looked up curiously. “How do you figure that?”
Renee told herself she shouldn’t have started this discussion, but he might as well hear it from her before someone else told him. “People around here think I should be giving Tessie someone who can be a father figure to her so she doesn’t invent imaginary princes. I mean, she has uncles and all, but she doesn’t know them well, and—”
Renee stopped. It was none of his business why she didn’t have a man in her life.
It was silent for so long that she didn’t know whether to just put the vehicle in gear and back up or sit and wait for him to say something.
“You mean people want you to get married,” he finally said, sounding puzzled, “just to have a father for Tessie?”
Put like that, it didn’t seem like such a good idea.
“Well, I’m sure they want me to like the guy, too.”
“And what do you do when you wake up someday and realize you are unhappy?” he challenged with a bit of anger in his voice. “That’s not going to do your child any favors.”
“I would never leave,” Renee protested. Even in all of those awful days with her ex-husband, she had never left. Not even when she should have done so. Not even when he was arrested. She suddenly realized that maybe her ex-husband sending those divorce papers was an act of kindness and not something meant to upset her. Maybe he knew she could never bring herself to do it.
“I just never would,” she finally said softly, her indignation spent.
Rusty was silent and they sat a few minutes more, even though the windshield had defrosted enough.
“My mother left,” he said quietly. “It was a spring day. Her birthday. I gave her the pearl necklace I bought with my wages from Mr. Elkton. I was so proud. I just knew it would make her happy.”
Renee reached over and touched his arm. “I’m sorry.”
“I’ve done fine without her,” Rusty said, his voice gaining strength. “I just don’t want you to make the same mistake. Who do people think you should marry anyway?”
“Barry Grover.” Renee turned her attention back to the wheel.
She wasn’t so sure Rusty should be confiding in her or she in him. She knew sometimes strangers told each other things that they didn’t tell those close to them, but it made her uneasy. Still, since he’d told her something so personal, she owed him.
“So what’s so special about Barry?” Rusty was looking at her, his brown eyes serious.
Renee shifted the vehicle into Reverse and started to back up. “They say he’s steady. And I want that.”
“Steady?” Rusty sounded bewildered.
Renee nodded. “Regular job. No call to adventure. You know, the kind of man who can give me and Tessie our own house. Not that I mind living in the cook’s quarters at the ranch, but there’s not much room. Not even space for a desk for Tessie when she starts having homework. Or a bedroom for her when she’s older. I sleep on the sofa and she sleeps on a small cot.”
Rusty nodded.
“And he can make my later years golden,” she added in all fairness to Barry.
Renee checked in the rearview mirror to be sure Tessie was sleeping.
“Really? Stocks? Property?” Rusty asked.
“Pension,” Renee said as she turned the pickup around and started on the road home to the Elkton ranch. “From the postal service.”
“Oh,” Rusty murmured. “I suppose that’s important.”
She could tell he meant no such thing and she couldn’t say anything, because she agreed with him. She might marry for security, but it wasn’t financial security. She wanted a home, but it could be small. She didn’t care if her husband was a mailman or the president of the United States. She wanted someone who would care about her and Tessie.
The roads were clear and the pickup ran smoothly. Renee noticed that some of the shrubs were white with ice. The barbed-wire fences stretched out on both sides of the gravel road. The sky was gray and came down to meet the barren ground around them like a bowl set over the earth.
She looked in the rearview mirror and assured herself that the sheriff was following in his patrol car.
“Maybe we can work on the not-being-a-prince thing tomorrow,” she finally said. “Tessie had a hard time today. Tomorrow is soon enough to crush her hopes.”
Rusty turned to stare at her.
“Is that what will happen if I tell her I’m not her prince?” he protested in horror. “I figured she’d be a little unsettled, but I don’t want to upset her that much.”
Renee looked over. The man had actually turned pale. “I don’t see how you have a choice. What she really wants is the message you’re supposed to have from her father. Do you have one?”
“Of course not,” Rusty said, his color coming back. “But there’s not much I can do about that.”
“Well, there you have it,” she said.
Before long, they were turning onto the Elkton ranch property. Renee always liked the large wooden sign hanging between two massive logs that towered over the road leading into the place. The ranch hands maintained the road, clearing snow in the winter and fixing potholes in the summer.
“My father always said this sign was a waste of good trees,” Rusty said with a slight smile. “My mother loved it, though. Claimed it was the sign of a civilized ranch, where people stopped for tea in the afternoon and understood the art of conversation.”
Renee shrugged. “They mostly drink coffee in the bunkhouse.”
“I suppose so.”
“But I love the sign, too,” Renee added.
Rusty nodded.
Ordinarily, she’d go to the cook’s quarters, but since Tessie’s things were in the main house, she planned to stop there first and get some toys before she drove all three of them over to the bunkhouse to eat pot roast. Tessie should change her clothes, too.
“Can I help with anything?” Rusty asked when she stopped the pickup in front of the Elkton house porch. He unbuckled his seat belt and turned around to look at Tessie. “Should I carry her inside?”
“Not with your shoulder,” Renee said.
“It’s okay,” he said as he opened his door. “She’s not that heavy.”
“You’ll pay the price tomorrow,” Renee said, but she nodded.
It suddenly occurred to her that Tessie might react differently to the man when she wasn’t desperate for rescue. Her daughter didn’t trust easily. Maybe it would be worthwhile to see how she greeted her prince now.
“Tessie,” Rusty whispered as he stood outside the back door of the cab and undid the seat belts holding the girl upright. “I’m going to carry you inside, so if you can just wake up a little bit, I can do that.”
“Kiss me,” her daughter said drowsily.
“What?” Rusty straightened up and looked at Renee in almost comical panic.
Renee hid her smile. “Sleeping Beauty. She likes to play that with me. The prince needs to kiss the princess to make her wake up.”
She whispered to Rusty, “A pretend kiss will do.”
The mischief returned to Rusty’s eyes and he leaned back over Tessie. “Now, I wonder, what happens if the prince doesn’t kiss the princess? Does she turn into a spider?”
With that, Rusty walked his fingers up Tessie’s arm until he got to her neck.
By that time Tessie was giggling so hard she opened her eyes and squealed in delight.
All of them quieted down when the sheriff’s car pulled in beside them. Renee decided Tessie didn’t need a toy. Not when she had her prince to amuse her.
“We can just go over to the bunkhouse,” Renee said. “The pot roast should be done by now.”
The air in the pickup didn’t even have a chance to cool off in the minute it took to drive past the barn and corrals and come to the front of the bunkhouse. Renee watched without comment as Tessie lifted her arms out to Rusty and he gathered her up to carry her inside.
* * *
Rusty didn’t know what he expected in a place where bachelor cowboys lived, but it wasn’t this. Renee had opened the door to a room rich with green plants and wood flooring. The diamond-paned windows were covered with white gauze curtains. Three overstuffed brown leather couches were gathered to one side around a fireplace made of river rock. A round oak table that looked as if it would seat fifteen people stood in the middle of the room. Two decks of cards sat on the table ready to use. He picked one of them up and saw it had a picture of clouds and a Western couple on it that advertised some book. The ranch hands must read. Tessie held her hand out for the cards, but he put the deck down on the coffee table.
“They are not ours,” he whispered in the girl’s ear.
“Pretty,” she said.
He nodded and looked down the long hallway to his right. The hall went straight and he counted four doors on each side.
He always thought that men who lived alone did so with clutter and an absence of light and pleasing color. There had certainly been no softness to his family’s ranch house after his mother left. But this bunkhouse could be on the cover of one of those gracious-living magazines. He wondered if it was Renee’s doing.
“You’re lucky to have your mama,” Rusty whispered in Tessie’s ear as he set her on one of the couches. He was almost certain Renee could hang curtains in a cave if that was where she lived.
Little Tessie looked up at him solemnly and nodded.
The sheriff had followed them in the door, but he had sat down and was using the bunkhouse phone. He’d said he couldn’t get cell reception and had to return some calls.
Rusty went over to the tall Christmas tree that stood in the corner of the room. It was decorated with old horseshoes and white coiled rope. Even a few silver spurs were added on the thicker branches. Pine cones were tied here and there with red ribbons.
“That’s some tree,” he said and turned around to search for Renee.
“Give me a hand,” she said from where she stood in front of an old-fashioned walnut buffet. The doors were open and she was pulling out a stack of cast-iron trivets. “I should have put these on the table when I set the plates earlier. That way I can leave the pot roast in the pans.”
Rusty stepped over and reached with his good arm. Renee hesitated and finally gave him four of the trivets. “I forgot about your shoulder. You need to rest your arms. It can’t be doing you any good to move either one of them so much.”
No one had fussed over him since—he stopped a moment to try to remember. No one had ever bothered with how he felt, except for Mrs. Hargrove and now Renee. That was two people in one day. He wondered if the planets were still in alignment or if the whole universe was in as much shock as he was.
“My shoulder is fine,” he said as he carried the trivets to the table.
Rusty made another trip for napkins and helped Renee place them on the left side of each of the twelve plates. He found he kind of liked doing a domestic chore like this with her. Eight years in the army had accustomed him to tin plates and plastic forks. Renee used heavy white stoneware and good quality silver-plated utensils. He didn’t need to be told these meals were important to her and that people often lingered afterward for conversation.
Some women just natural
ly knew how to build a home—a family, really—and he suspected Renee was one of them.
Sheriff Wall was just finishing his calls when Rusty heard a faint sound of something outside. He looked at the plank door and saw it was securely closed. Not locked, but not moving in the wind. The windows looked out into the snowy yard of the Elkton ranch. No cattle were loose; no dogs barking. He planned to look up Dog after dinner, but the sounds weren’t coming from him. Rusty strained to hear and the sound came closer. It was low-pitched giggling.
“Can you keep an eye on Tessie?” Renee said as she turned to him. “I’ll run over to the cook’s house and get the pot roast.”
Those giggles were charged with more than good cheer.
“Wait a minute,” Rusty said as he put up his hand for silence. Some of the tones sounded familiar. And he heard the soft tread of a boot on the boardwalk outside the door.
He took a step forward to prevent what he now knew was likely to happen, but it was too late.
In a burst of snowflakes, denim jeans and swirling long brown hair, his brother, Eric, and another teenager stumbled through the doorway and into the bunkhouse. If it hadn’t been for the laughter still bubbling up from Eric, Rusty would not have known him. He’d talked to his brother almost every week since he’d left Dry Creek, but he hadn’t seen him. A few school pictures were all he had to measure the boy.
His brother had shot up from five and a half feet to what must be a full six feet two inches tall. He was skinny, though, and had the same Calhoun slouch Rusty had at his age. Fortunately, the long hair belonged to the girl and not his brother. Rusty couldn’t say much about his brother’s posture, but he just might say something about the tattoo of a dragon that curled around the boy’s forearm, half of it covered by the sleeve of a white T-shirt.
It was Eric’s eyes that surprised Rusty most. They were lit up with something he’d never seen on his brother’s face before—pure joy.
White Christmas in Dry Creek Page 7
